Heathrow's Terminal Five provided welcome new facilities for passengers and to allow for bigger planes, but it didn't deliver a single new take-off or landing slot. It is because of the lack of runway capacity at Heathrow that airlines are forced to choose between old destinations and new – or to go elsewhere entirely. Last month alone Leeds/Bradford and Durham Tees Valley airports both lost their links to Heathrow as airlines shuffled their slots, while Air India decided to base its European hub at Frankfurt because it couldn't secure slots at Heathrow. As the global economy tilts towards the emerging Asian economies we should all be concerned that Frankfurt has direct links with six Chinese cities. London's five airports have flights from just two, both to Heathrow – which, because of the transfer traffic it attracts, is the only UK airport which can make such flights viable.

It is little wonder that so many businesses and business organisations, such as the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, favour new Heathrow capacity within strict environmental limits; both to improve reliability and to provide space for new destinations, as is the case at Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

As we recover from recession it is my job as BAA's chief executive to make the business case for our proposed new runways at Stansted and Heathrow. But whoever forms the next government will need to make strategic decisions for the next few decades on where those runways should be, particularly in the south-east where no new full-length runway has been built since 1945.

The shadow transport secretary announced this month that she is against a new airport in the Thames Estuary as the mayor of London has proposed, to add to her opposition to expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. The pros and cons of individual runway proposals will I'm sure continue to be debated, but it is surely necessary for politicians of all parties to make difficult decisions – and those decisions are increasingly urgent if we are to keep the UK competitive in the even more globalised world that will emerge from the recession.